Monday, November 23, 2015

One in Every Six Alcohol-Related Deaths in the World Occurs in Russia, New Survey Finds

Paul
Goble

Staunton, November 23 – Even though
Russians represent less than three percent of the world’s population, one of
every six alcohol-related deaths in the world occurs within the borders of the
Russian Federation, a figure that means Russia is overrepresented in this
category by more than 500 percent.

But as tragic as that figure is, the
situation in some parts of the Russian Federation – particularly those with
predominantly ethnic Russian populations and in extreme climatic conditions –
is far worse than in others, particularly those with predominantly Muslim
populations and less extreme weather.

And these often enormous differences
in alcohol-related deaths amongthe
regions mean that the share of ethnic Russians in the population will continue
to decline and that of the historically Muslim nations continue to rise, almost
independent of any other factor or government program.

Those are just some of the findings
contained in a new study prepared by the Rating Center for Communication on
behalf of the “Sober Russia” Project which rated Russia’s federal subjects by
the number of alcohol-related problems their populations’ currently face (regnum.ru/news/ratings/2018002.html).

Each
region was evaluated in terms of the number of those ill with alcoholism or alcoholic
psychoses, the amount of beer sold, mortality from alcohol consumption, and
crimes carried out when their perpetrators were drunk. The regions were then
ranked on a scale from 100 to 600.

The
20 most “sober regions,” the study found were led by three predominantly Muslim
republics, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Daghestan, followed by Moscow, St. Petersburg
and a mix of Muslim and Russian federal subjects. In these places, the amount
of alcoholism was lower than average as were sales of vodka and beer and
alcohol-related crimes.

The
second group of 43 were closer to the average and included mostly predominantly
Russian areas.And the third, where
conditions were the worse, were in Russian-majority regions in Siberia and the
Far East. At the very bottom were Kamchatka, Magadan, the Nenets AO and the
Jewish AO. (Despite names, these are both predominantly ethnic Russian.)